I have read with interest the recent letters about the new changes to booking sites at the Caravan and Motorhome Club (C&MC) sites, and the new system of a deposit came as a surprise, but it was not unexpected.
The new site fees have rocketed, as has the membership fee and are now far more expensive than so many other non-club sites.
For example, a booking made for two nights at Foxtail Holiday Park, a Premier Park, costs £68 with electric and water, whilst the Lady Margaret's Park C&MC site, 10 minutes' walk away, is charging £83.20 for the same facilities, on the same dates.
I had a booking cancelled by the C&MC at Uttoxeter Club site and I had paid the £25 deposit. I expected this to be repaid immediately, but was told it could take up to 14 days. After I complained it was paid the next day.
The arrival time of 1pm, which has been introduced, is ridiculous, even though you now no longer have to leave until 1pm.
When you consider the rise in site fees and having to pay a membership fee, the cost of using the Club is becoming an expensive hobby.
Christine Perkins
Further to the ongoing debate in these pages on the merits of Club membership, I'd be interested to hear other readers' views following our recent experience at the C&MC site at Lady Margaret's Park.
We had booked two pitches, and my brother and I travelled with our families in convoy for the two-hour journey. I arrived about five minutes before him (using the fast check-in facility), pitched the motorhome, and placed two chairs on the vacant adjacent pitch to await his imminent arrival.
Seemingly within seconds, a warden arrived, and asked us whether the chairs were anything to do with us. After we explained the situation, we were berated for not following the rules that forbade reserving a pitch for someone else. He proceeded to literally throw our chairs off the pitch. Despite my reasonable protestations that my brother was only minutes away, the warden refused to budge from the rule book.
Similarly, another motorhomer later told us that they had arrived at 12.58 (two minutes before the allowed 1pm arrival time), were berated for arriving too early, and reminded in no uncertain terms that the rules are there to be followed.
Elsewhere on the newly and expensively refurbished site, there was no WiFi available (apart from a hotspot outside reception); the TV aerial points on the electricity posts had been disconnected; and all the bins had been relocated from the service points to the central block.
All this cost us £36.70 per night. This inevitably leads us to
